


flying/falling

by mahoun



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-13
Updated: 2015-12-13
Packaged: 2018-05-06 14:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5420117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mahoun/pseuds/mahoun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>falling in love was like a short, fast ride, a one-way ride sanghyuk never really bought a ticket for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	flying/falling

falling in love was like a short, fast ride.  
sometimes it’d be a train ride, like sitting in the first class of one of those shiny, bright red bullet trains, a clean-looking, sweet-talking hostess asking if you’d like a glass of water.  
you’d barely notice you were moving, a half full glass of water sitting still on the trail in front of you, too busy playing with your phone to see how the view outside would quickly morph from the dull grey of suburbs into the green of grass, the blue of a river, the outlines of dozens of trees.  
jaehwan was a bit like a train ride, a one-way ride sanghyuk never really bought a ticket for - he was caught in just like that, drawn to him in the strangest, most subtle of ways - and before he could realize, he’d already reached the end of line, confused and with no map, just with a big, painful crush that he feared would get him nowhere.  
he’d think of him at night, tugging at the hem of his covers until they were pulled all the way up to his head, sighing a little at the thought of his smiling face.  
jaehwan smiled a lot, laughed a lot, told a lot of dumb, often pointless jokes, and he’d always be the one to laugh the hardest at them.  
that was until sanghyuk noticed the way his eyes would light up when being told he was funny, the way his cheeks would flush the lightest shade of pink whenever sanghyuk would elbow him in a fit of laughter - and sanghyuk made a point to always laugh the most, just so he could see that faint shadow of _something_ on jaehwan’s face, something he wasn’t sure of yet but made his heart thump and his stomach churn every time.  
kissing jaehwan for the first time was like a rollercoaster ride, blunt, dizzying, with too many twists and turns - yet all he wanted was to do it again, over and over and over.  
his heart ached even though he felt happy, so happy as he clung onto jaehwan’s shirt and let him press their bodies close, their mouths closer, their hearts together.  
jaehwan smelled like musk with a faint hint of sweat, and sanghyuk chuckled at the thought that maybe jaehwan had been just as nervous as he was, that maybe he’d spent as many sleepless nights thinking of his lips on sanghyuk’s, their fingers laced, their tongues muddled together.  
and he did - he told sanghyuk after they pulled away, after countless “i like you” and “i’m sorry”, after he took sanghyuk’s hand into his own and tucked it into the pocket of his coat.  
“it’s cold,” he said, eyes shining through the lightless night of the park, like little slices of moon glowing for sanghyuk, and sanghyuk only; a faint, content smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.  
sanghyuk’s heart was stomping, threatening to crush him into millions of pieces if he only took another glance at jaehwan, yet he couldn’t look away, dazed by any and every little thing about him.  
they held hands for the whole night, warm and wet and slippery inside of jaehwan’s pockets, save for when jaehwan cupped sanghyuk’s face to kiss him goodbye.  
as his eyes kept following jaehwan’s shrinking frame, sanghyuk wondered how much longer he could stay alive when his chest felt like it’d burst open at any second - he wondered if being with jaehwan would always feel like this, and feared that he couldn’t handle it, not even for a little while longer.

“you want a ride?” jaehwan was beaming in the grey of a dull autumn afternoon, teeth scraping barely against his bottom lip, looking adorably embarrassed.  
“i just got my license and, uh…” he paused, cheeks growing rosier with every second of silence that passed between them, “i thought that we could maybe… go somewhere.”  
sanghyuk’s stomach backflipped as he got into the second-hand car, jaehwan leaning into his seat because “the seatbelt’s a bit gone”, so that he could fix it for him.  
it wasn’t a very long ride - they drove for 30 minutes maybe - and every time he could, jaehwan would sneak his free hand to sanghyuk’s, squeezing them together. sanghyuk would look at him, all focused on the road with a little, playful smile on his lips, and his heart would beat faster just with that.  
as jaehwan stopped the car and leaned in to kiss him, music pumping loud from the radio, sanghyuk thought that he had finally figured out what love was.  
each touch of jaehwan’s, every whimper, every whispered “i love you” told him about it, and sanghyuk made it a mental note to remember it, not to let it slip away.  
and somewhere between another kiss and jaehwan’s head sliding between his legs, he’d already forgot about it.

falling out of love was nothing like he’d expected, slow and silent like a hot-air balloon.  
being in love with jaehwan was a bit like looking at the scenery from aboard a balloon, their fingers laced together, jaehwan pointing to thousands of meters below them and going “look, cars are as small as ants from up here!”  
people would feel so small when they looked at them from the high of their love, and they’d never think about how they were just as small once - that one day, maybe, they could lose sight of each other and become like that again.  
sanghyuk would cling onto jaehwan’s arm and smile, pointing upwards instead, and he’d tell him about how he always wanted to fly when he was a kid, he’d tell him with tears in his eyes about how grateful he was that he met him.  
his tears would fall on jaehwan’s lips as they kissed, warm and salty, and sanghyuk would know with just a look that jaehwan felt the same.  
being in love was just like riding a hot-air balloon, slow and comforting, but never boring, like the routine of their relationship.  
they’d make love and eat ice cream and kiss and watch movies and sleep in each other’s arms sometimes, over and over, never getting tired of it.  
and when the time came for them to get back down, they didn’t even notice - people like them get too immersed in flying, too ecstatic to really think about what’s coming next, about how somehow, at some point, every ride is meant to end.

it happened slowly, little by little, and sanghyuk didn’t notice until a few months in - didn’t notice how jaehwan would say that he was tired more often and took him home a few minutes earlier each time, how he’d pretend to be asleep sometimes when jaehwan texted him after 2am - and when he did notice, he told himself that it was nothing bad, that it was gonna be okay.  
he learned to ignore the little pang of anxiety he got every time jaehwan would tell him he had too much homework to do, that the damn psychology professor gave him another essay assignment, that he was just _so_ tired - he learned to ignore it so well that it quickly became nothing but a little buzzing at the back of his head, barely there as he’d say “it’s okay, let’s see each other next week” and hung up.

breaking up was nothing like he’d expected, so different from the stories he heard from his friends, so _normal_.  
there were no cheating, no big fights, no burning disappointments - just jaehwan’s face as he had always remembered it, but a little more tired.  
letting go of the person you put all your faith in, the person you gave all of your hopes and love to, that’s what’s most difficult and hurts the most.  
it’s a little bit like sitting in your business class flight, a half empty glass of water falling from the trail in front of you and onto the floor, all of the water spilling on your finest shoes.  
but you wouldn’t care about the shoes, because there’s something terribly with what just happened, something wrong and out of place in the way the crew is frantically walking back and forth, the sound of their knuckles knocking on the pilot’s cabin echoing in the sudden silence.  
the pilot’s voice would suddenly blare from the speakers, advising everyone to keep their seatbelts fastened, something in the metallicness of his voice screaming defeat.  
you’d look at the person in front of you, and they’d look right back at you with the same desperation in their eyes, like they knew; and when the pilot would speak again you’d squeeze their hand between yours, hard, as hard as your trembling body would allow you to.  
that’s how hard sanghyuk clung to jaehwan, even though he knew it was time to let go, even though he knew that the flight of their love was inevitably going to crash.

still, saying goodbye wasn’t as simple as he imagined.  
it was like being in a sinking ship, looking outside as the portholes would slowly begin to crack right in front of his eyes.  
as he told jaehwan that “it’s better if we end it here,” it felt like he was looking at the water starting to seep in from between the cracks, and he prayed that it would stop, prayed that this wasn’t the end - he hoped that jaehwan would yell at him, with that scary tone he only uses when things get serious, and tell him to cut off with that nonsense, that he loved him just like the first day, that they were meant to be.  
but jaehwan didn’t do any of that - he just smiled, that sad, bitter smile sanghyuk hated, and told him that he felt just the same, that there wasn’t anything worth saving anymore.  
and as jaehwan picked up his things from sanghyuk’s room and walked away, sanghyuk felt like he couldn’t breathe, like his lungs were filled with water, cold sea water that would kill him before jaehwan could even close the door behind him.

sanghyuk never believed in destiny - that was more of a jaehwan thing, jaehwan who would read him horoscopes from the weirdest assortment of magazines and laugh at sanghyuk’s huffs and protests before shutting him off with a kiss.  
sanghyuk never believed in destiny - but if not destiny, what was that about?  
it had to be a work of destiny, jaehwan being right there, in the same carriage as him, his seat just in front of sanghyuk’s; couldn’t be a coincidence, the way they both froze when they caught sight of each other, arms lifted up in the same motion while tucking their baggages into the compartment above their heads.  
sanghyuk didn’t know about destiny, but he knew about jaehwan.  
he knew about jaehwan who looked just the same, but a bit older, little wrinkles dancing at the corners of his mouth every time he smiled; knew about jaehwan who became a professor just like he always wanted to.  
and as jaehwan told him that he switched tickets with an elder woman so that they could sit together, he felt that this time would be the right time.  
he looked at the scenery outside as it turned from the grey of suburbs into the green of the countryside, never missing a second of it, jaehwan’s fingers lightly brushing against the back of his hand setting a faint sense of happiness in the depths of his chest.  
he didn’t know about destiny, but he knew about jaehwan, and he was sure that jaehwan felt the same, this time - he was sure that this ride was the one he wanted to be on, now and for the rest of his life.

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted on [tumblr](http://mahoun.tumblr.com/post/108854948926/kenhyuk-flyingfalling)!  
> loosely based on [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70MBQrlsr_M) song♪


End file.
